College District Board Rejects Move to Reconsider Tax

Los Angeles Community College District trustees have defeated a bid to reconsider their decision to tax 1 million properties in the county beginning this year and instead place the issue before voters in a November election.

Responding to widespread protests by residents and state lawmakers, members of the district’s Board of Trustees who were on the losing side of a controversial 4-3 vote two weeks ago tried Wednesday night to reopen the issue.

But the motion died in a 3-3 deadlock when trustee Althea Baker, a potential swing vote, left the board hearing room until the tally was over. Baker had voted with the majority to levy the tax earlier this month, but she also was considered the softest in her support for it.

The move to reconsider was sponsored by trustees Elizabeth Garfield and Lindsay Conner, who have opposed the tax since district officials first began considering it a year ago. They, along with Baker, face reelection next year.

So for now, the nation’s largest community college district is proceeding to levy an annual landscaping and lighting assessment on almost every property within its 882-square-mile area beginning in November. Owners of single-family homes are to be charged $12 a year.

District officials plan to use the levy, which is to continue for at least 20 years, to finance about $205 million worth of landscaping, lighting and recreational improvements at the district’s nine college campuses, most of which are sorely in need of upgrades.

District officials maintain that they are using a legal and long-established process to raise money that does not require voter approval. But their move has drawn protest from tens of thousands of residents and a bipartisan collection of state and local lawmakers.

The state Assembly has passed a measure, now in committee, that would strip the district of $1.10 in state funding for every $1 raised through the tax. Acting Chancellor Bonnie James suggested Wednesday the district would file a lawsuit if that measure were enacted.

Meanwhile, several homeowner groups said they were still pursuing efforts to launch a recall campaign against trustees who voted for the tax. And district officials have scheduled a July 9 meeting for the board to vote on projects they want to fund with the tax.